Daniel Temkin

Post a banger that’s not in English: youtu.be/IqBg3-glScA?...

Before prompt engineering, we had the English esolang. Simply write out what you want a program to do in natural langauge. Its interpreter is another programmer, who actually writes a program to do what you wanted. esolangs.org/wiki/English

Hands holding a copy of "Output: An Anthology of Computer-Generated Text 1953 - 2023" edited by Lillian-Yvonne Bertram and Nick Montfort on a plain background.

Open pages of "Output" on a plain background. The left page reads: i've never picked a protected flower Everest Pipkin, 2018 A paragraph of text is included over an image of a Unicode poem. The right page features an image of another Unicode poem.

We often think of computers as numerical devices, but part of the history of computing is also found in how computers manipulate language. "Output" showcases seven decades of English-language machine-generated texts, long predating ChatGPT: mitpress.mit.edu/978026254981... @docmofo.bsky.social

Emergency cat ears, sign with Notice: cat ears must be worn

The tall, elven, German, enby hackers have spoken

Abduction from the Seraglio | February 2026 | Pacific Opera Project POP’s beloved Star Trek parody, Abduction from the Seraglio, returns this February at Thorne Hall at Occidental College. Originally premiered in 2015 at the El Portal Theater in North Hollywood, The H...

Who would’ve thought the Gorn as tenors www.pacificoperaproject.com/abduction-fr...

Desire Paths for Wikipedia An extension that remembers the path of a cursor over the linked pages of Wikipedia, “wearing” them into the page.

I've just published a new userscript that remembers the path of your cursor over the linked pages of Wikipedia, averaging and wearing them into the page, showing your browsing history over time

Install at greasyfork.org/en/scripts/5... or read more about it everest-pipkin.com#projects/des...

Today I shared a preview of Inventing ELIZA, giving the intro chapter to all participants in the 2026 Critical Code Studies Working Group! Very excited to bring this book, born of the working groups, into the world this summer after so many years!

wg.criticalcodestudies.com/index.php?p=...

Looking forward to going through this! A bit overwhelmed with the book tour atm but hoping to catch up a bit more on ccswg

When I discovered Maslov's book a few years ago, I quickly recognized just how #esoteric (in the sense of #esolang) it is.

So. I have finally updated An Esolang Reading List to include it:

catseye.tc/view/The-Dos...

GitHub - phreda4/r3: r3 programing language - ColorForth inspired r3 programing language - ColorForth inspired. Contribute to phreda4/r3 development by creating an account on GitHub.

r3forth is a programming language and environment inspired by ColorForth github.com/phreda4/r3

The #FOSDEM talk is here. The projector cut out every few min, which is not reflected in the video, but is why I describe things you can plainly see. With a talk started and 500 people looking at me, I find it better to roll with it than mess around with equipment! mirror.as35701.net/video.fosdem...

Tickets for already-scheduled events, including a talk by Daniel Temkin entitled Forty-Four Esolangs: The Art of Esoteric Code, are accessible to buy on the CCA's website - with the CCA’s ticketing site still fully functional and accepting payments.

Yeah, don't buy tickets for my event at Glasgow CCA; the venue has ceased to exist. The former employees are locked out of their email and can't respond!

Full article from The Scotsman: www.scotsman.com/arts-and-cul...

Yoko Ono’s Art Is an Exercise in Hope By inviting viewers to participate in her work, she has consistently framed collective hope amid a cultural backdrop of suffering and pain.

Yoko Ono is truly one of the world’s most generous artists. By including the viewer as a participatory component of her work, she has consistently framed collective hope amid a cultural backdrop of war, violence, racism, and sexism, each of which has touched her personally.

Thank you

Whelp, my therapist of seventeen years died. Listening to Pharaoh Sanders in his honor

But what if I’d been trying to post about Juan Luis Pedro Felipo de Huevos Epstein?

New Creative Works: 2025 A portfolio of creative digital works published in 2025, including generative poetry, protest art, and cyborg digital writing.

Here a roundup of all my creative works published in 2025 (6 original and 3 republished). leo-elo.github.io/leonardoflor...

#elit #eliterature #DH #digitalhumanities #creativewriting #literature #creativecoding #vibecoding #AI

Here's the Rivulet page from the show website www.sourcecode-exhibition.softwareheritage.org/coding-anoth...

Daniel Temkin: Forty-Four Esolangs

Hey #FOSDEM and #GPN folks: I’ll be talking #esolangs this Friday night at ZKM; a reading and lively discussion of esoteric programming. Free, 6pm, Karlsruhe! zkm.de/en/2026/02/d...

“What happens when programming languages aim not at functionality, but at irritation, reflection, or poetry?”

There was discussion of this at @softwareheritage.org / @unesco.org last week: the over-reliance on American-based corporate systems like GitHub / Microsoft by open-source projects

So nice to hear!

Oop, he is here too; here’s all his #FOSDEM sketches bsky.app/profile/jero...

Hacker Folk Art of Esoteric Code, lots of text bubbles with esolang names and a big No Signal

My #FOSDEM talk as summarized in image by Jeroen Heijmans over on mastodon

Includes many esolangs I discussed as examples of three genres of esolang (Turing Tarpit, multicoding, and non-English [standing in for many others critical of tech defaults]).

And No Signal for when my screen blinked out

Wow, thank you!

Source Code Exhibition posters

Rivulet in the Source Code exhibition catalog

Me showing Rivulet to two others

Rivulet poster

Highlight of my time in Paris was this wonderful Source Code exhibition by @softwareheritage.org at @unesco.org, including my Rivulet language, Lingdong’s wenyan-lang, source code of ELIZA, and obfuscated code by Adrian Cable. Code is culture!

FOSDEM 2026 - The Hacker Folk Art of Esoteric Code

I’ll be there! fosdem.org/2026/schedul...

Code on display: A new exhibit at UNESCO - Software Heritage Explore the Source Code Exhibition at UNESCO. From historical testimony to cultural artifact, discover the human stories.

To mark 10 years of Software Heritage, the Source Code Exhibition opens Jan 28 at UNESCO in Paris. From 1960s chatbot logic to programming in Classical Chinese, we're treating code as a cultural artifact. https://www.softwareheritage.org/2026/01/23/source-code-exhibit-unesco-launch/

GitHub - rottytooth/Rivulet: A calligraphic esolang A calligraphic esolang. Contribute to rottytooth/Rivulet development by creating an account on GitHub.

The correct version is in the repo github.com/rottytooth/R... (not what’s in the preview below, which omits the last glyphs)

Just realized there’s an error in the last glyph; it’ll still runs but calculates more than it prints

a demoscene will emerge around
unaugmented intellectual labor